The Most Mature Way I Got Dumped Before I Even Met the Guy

…Oh wait, that has happened plenty of times. What I meant to say was, it's not often that I get rejected by a guy and actually like it. But it happened this week, so let me explain.

Over the holidays, a guy wrote to me on OkCupid with a thoughtful, detailed message. He seemed nice, and after the busy shuffle of the holidays, I wrote back. He responded with another equally personal message, but this time noting that he'd taken a closer look at my profile and various answers to questions and he was now afraid we weren't really a good fit. He was very sweet and complimentary (he called me "absolutely gorgeous" and "brilliant," if you must know/I totally just wanted to repeat that) but said that he wasn't looking for monogamy or commitment and needed to grow up and figure out what he wanted. (And to clarify, my profile does makes it clear, in what I hope is a nonobsessive way, that I personally am looking for those things, rather than him just assuming that's what all women my age want.)

I suppose there's a chance he could be using reverse psychology and hoping I'm the kind of girl who would consider that a irresistible challenge. But if so, he would have been sorely mistaken as the only kind of challenges I enjoy involve eating massive amounts of food at high speeds. (Fun fact: My freshman year, my friends and I once beat a trio of Ohio State football players in one round of a pizza-eating contest.) However, I chose to take him at face value and truly appreciated the fact that I didn't have to meet this guy and go on three dates with him before it became totally obvious that he had no intention of being in any kind of serious relationship.

Seriously, if every guy like this I'd ever encountered had been so up front, I could have saved myself like 10 years of my dating history. We want different things. Neither of us is wrong. It just wouldn't go anywhere. End of story. Easy, breezy, beautiful time-and-feelings saver.

What would you have thought if you received a message like this? Are you into the honesty? Or does it seem unnecessary to you?